Our Opihr Gin review finds an unashamedly spiced gin with flavours of the Orient. A great gin to try with ginger ale.
Opihr Gin is a spicy gin that’s distilled by G&J Distillers. It’s bottled at 40% and its botanicals include coriander, cubebs and black pepper. Opihr Gin is a stablemate of Greenall’s Gin and Thomas Dakin Gin, amongst others. It’s distilled in traditional copper stills in Warrington, England.
Opihr Gin review – a taste of the Orient
Opihr is really attractively packaged and majors on its oriental theme. As gin bottle geeks, we like the map that you can see through the bottle, and the colourful tassel you can see in the picture above. In our experience, nothing bad ever bad ever came from the inclusion of a tassel. There might be argument to say that many gins have similar roots, with botanicals from around the globe, but the main theme here is one of the ancient spice routes from the Orient.
On opening the bottle, there’s a foretaste (foresmell?) of those spices straight away. Coriander and pepper are discernible, but there’s also some citrus working away. Pleasingly, for the traditionalists, juniper also seems to be making an appearance.
Pouring yourself a sample and tasting it really does take things in a more definite direction than you might expect from the aroma. Immediately there’s a spiciness that takes over far more clearly. The juniper is still there, and some earthiness, but the main drive is spice. It doesn’t take us to tell you where that spiciness comes from. A quick look at the botanical list, with its cubebs and black pepper, tells you all you need to know.
There’s something almost akin to a curry flavoured linger to Opihr Gin, with a hint of citrus thrown in. It’s not unpleasant at all – we love a good curry – but that’s the closest description we could find for the taste. We agreed that it reminded us of a milder version of that nice mixture of those spice and citrus-based accompaniments you get with papadums in your local restaurant.
How to serve Opihr Gin
Our opinion only, but we really felt that Opihr needs something a little bit more robust to work with it and really compliment those spicy notes. From a previous tasting we’d already included it on our top list of gins to pair with ginger ale. We’re going to stick with that; ginger ale is a good match for Opihr Gin. We did prefer that to a gin and tonic using Opihr, although a suggested serve in a gin and tonic with a slice of orange as garnish also went down well.
We’d urge a little caution with any cocktails you plan for your Ophir. It’ll work really well with other strong flavours, but not where a bit more subtlety is required. That robustness needs to be matched in our view.
Overall, Opihr is a gin that did slightly split opinion here at whichgin.com. It’s fantastic if you like a very different and spicy hit to your gin. However, we’d look elsewhere if you prefer floral, more delicate gins. That’s not a criticism of Opihr, and it certainly doesn’t try to hide those Oriental spices and flavours. We’d highly recommend you try it, particularly with ginger ale, for something a little different. Those tassles look great on any gin shelf too.
Buy Opihr Gin UK
Ophir Gin is widely available in the UK. It’s a gin that you can regularly see on offer for less than £20. Buy from Amazon or Master of Malt.
Buy Opihr Gin US
The good news is that you can buy Ophir Gin in the US and Canada via Drizly. Click on the ad below to take you to the relevant page to see if you can get it delivered within an hour!
